The Lynching of Willie Earle refers to an incident that took place in Greenville, South Carolina on February 16, 1947, when Willie Earle, a 24-year-old black man, was arrested, taken from his jail cell and murdered. It is considered the last racially motivated lynching to occur in North Carolina. The subsequent trial gained much media attention, and was covered by Rebecca West for The New Yorker. The trial resulted in the acquittal of thirty-one white men who had been charged with Earle's murder.